“No?” she asked.
I kissed her forehead. “No, Ana. I’m going to take care of things.”
“What does that mean?”
I looked at the bruise under her eye. The rage started to boil again. “Nobody touches my girl. Ever. I’m going to make him pay. The Reaper’s Bastards are riding strong again, darlin’. And I’m going to take us to war. He’ll never hurt you again.”
Ana eased into my body some more and kissed my neck. I felt her tongue flicker against my sweaty skin. I rolled to my back and pulled my darlin’ to my chest. She kissed my neck, my cheek, and she tried to nibble at my mouth.
I turned my head and looked at her. “I love you, Ana. I’ve always loved you. I kept my distance to protect you and look what it did to you. I’ll never let that happen again.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” she whispered.
“Yes I can, darlin’. I’m keeping the guilt on this one. I owe you my life and you have it.”
Ana grinned and bit her bottom lip.
Her left pointer finger touched my chest. She drew a line right down to my cock. She traced a line down the middle of my shaft, right over the head of my dick. My dick pulsed and was right back to life.
Her hand tried to grip me and she started to jerk me.
We kissed.
The night wasn’t over yet.
chapter sixteen
(ana)
*THEN*
I curled up in my blankets and turned to face the wall. My insides were a little sore but it had been so worth it. My body was still shivering. The adrenaline rushed through me as though Knox was still behind me, guiding my body gently, offering himself and teaching me things about my body I didn’t know.
I never thought it would have taken me this long to lose it. Most of the people I knew had gone through plenty of stuff back in high school, but there I was, old enough to buy a beer legally but still a virgin.
Not anymore.
Somewhere inside me I had hoped for something romantic but that wasn’t the way it worked with Knox. At least we had done it in my bed. That was kind of romantic. The way it all just happened. Staring at each other. Kissing. Touching. The way he stripped me naked and began to taste me. Something then clicked in me. A wire broke and a wild woman decided to come forward.
I ended up ripping his jeans down and instead of sucking him off - which was what I usually did before sending him on his way to deal with club stuff - I grabbed his insanely big cock and told him to do it.
My cheeks blushed when I said it and Knox slowly touched my jaw.
“Are you sure about this, darlin? You’ll never be the same again.”
Those words floated through my mind and made me giddy. It made me really wet and horny when he said it and I knew every time I thought about those words in my life, it would make me smile, blush, and get wet.
I told him I was far beyond ready for him.
He was well prepared and sheathed himself with a condom. He then placed me on the bed where he wanted me and it all happened.
I bit on a pillow for the first few minutes as my body learned to accept what Knox had packing between his legs. There was a little mess but it didn’t bother him. He was soft and gentle at first, breaking my innocence open.
But then that was it.
After that… Knox fucked me. And the more he fucked me, the more my mind raced and wanted it more. The second the little tingles of pain subsided, the pleasure that replaced it was like nothing I ever felt before.
We ended up going at it twice before his phone started to ring.
I had a third time in mind but he had to go.
That was the saga of our lives. We were never really together and never really alone. Just fleeting moments where we could sort of stop time and enjoy each other.
Knox dressed and I stayed naked.
He then scooped me up and carried me to the bathroom. I didn’t want to wash him off my body but he warned me that I smelled like outlaw sex. That was fine by me but I got in the shower anyway.
I was so giddy, curled up in the covers, trying to sleep. But I kept looking up and looking across the yard, wanting to see his light turn on. I just wanted to be with him. Like really be with him. I wanted our own place, bed, life, and time together.
I fell asleep with a smile on my face, not knowing that just a few miles away Knox was going to get shot.
chapter seventeen
(ana)
*NOW*
He held deep inside my body as he came. I felt every pulse of his huge cock, reaching depths that only Knox could hit. My body was his playground and nobody could or would ever come close to what he did to me.
The hot shower water pounded against my lower back. My hands were inches above the faucet, my hands slipping down the sweaty tiles. Each thrust from behind was louder than normal because of the extra wetness from the shower.
Knox’s hands crept around my body and slid up my body, cupping my breasts. He pulled at me, making me stand. The pressure of his cock still inside me left my legs trembling. I felt so weak but felt so damn good at the same time.
I reached back with one hand, touching the tree trunk sized left leg of his. I reached up with my other hand and clawed at his sexy face. I turned my head and instantly, we started to kiss.
Knox exited my body, leaving a flood between my legs. He turned me around and pinned me against the tiled wall. My fingers scaled his entire body. Starting at his shoulders, I went down. His biceps were like boulders. His triceps had a natural horseshoe shape to them. Even his forearms were thick with muscle and all I could imagine was it coming from throttling his motorcycle.
Oh, his motorcycle. I couldn’t wait to ride on that thing again…
I touched his insane chest, my body unable to process how much he’d changed. My pussy ached to be touched again but I was tapped out. From last night to this morning… now the shower… it was like we were catching up on all those years missed.
I think I slept for four hours tops.
Every time one of us stirred in our sleep, our hands went for the other.
I woke out of sleep to find myself kissing down Knox’s stomach. Before I knew it, I had a mouthful of his cock and was going to town on him. I was never like that before. I couldn’t get enough of him. And when he finished, I fell right back asleep. A couple hours later I was having a wild dream about him. I felt myself getting wetter by the second. I grabbed the sheets and sighed. I feared I was going to orgasm in my sleep… have a wet dream right next to Knox. I forced myself to wake up only to find Knox between my legs, devouring me.
“I can’t get enough of you, darlin’,” he said to me, our lips still touching.
The shower water wasn’t going to stay hot for much longer. And I knew the wild risk of having Knox in my apartment. If Porter showed up…
I scratched at his face and nodded. “I know, Knox. But how does this work?”
“It just does,” he said. He kissed my neck and made a line down with his tongue. “Trust me, Ana. It just does.” His warm breath spread over my left breast. My nipples were already hard and had been for at least an hour straight. His tongue rolled around my nipple and he groaned. “I’m going to protect you for the rest of my life. The way it was meant to be.”
He latched to my breast and sucked so hard, my eyes watered… but so did my pussy.
His fingers slipped between my legs again, massaging me with circles.
“Well, look who’s ready to fuck again,” he said and stood back up.
I opened my legs and pressed my back against the tile. I reached down and grabbed his heavy cock and placed him against me.
Knox guided himself back into my body. I bit my lip and felt him tear into me. Sliding in inch by thick inch. Deeper by the second. His forehead touching mine. Showing me his teeth like a hungry animal.
His hands grabbed my ass and pulled, making damn sure he was deep as possible.
And he held there.
We just stared
at each other, falling in love all over again.
The situation was so dangerous… but it was going to get much more dangerous…
I watched him put on his leather cut and it was so hot. He was a giant to me. A monster. My monster. The years of being an outlaw had been kind to his body, even if he had taken beatings, been shot and stabbed. His ink covered the scar from that first time he was shot. Right after our first time together. My first time ever.
That seemed to be our trend.
For everything good, something bad happened.
I didn’t want to live my life like that or think of life that way, but it was a pattern with me and Knox.
He pointed to the bags on the floor and asked, “Still leaving?”
“I guess not,” I said. “Knox… what do I do about Porter?”
“That’s my problem,” he said. He touched my face. “I let this happen and I’m going to make sure it never happens again.”
“Knox…”
“Darlin’,” he said and grinned. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do. I’ve always trusted you.”
“Then I’m going to fix this,” he said. “I’m going to ask this and only once. You know I’d never hurt you. Do you love him?”
“No,” I said.
“Then… why?”
I backed up. “Comfort. It was all I had, okay? You’re not going to like it, Knox, but the only thing that left me feeling okay was when someone did stuff to me. I’m not a whore, but the feeling…”
Knox nodded and grabbed my hand. “I get it, darlin’. Anyone I was ever with I thought about you.”
“Me too. About you.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about. I’ve got my boys by my side, Ana. The Reap is fine. We’re strong. We’re everything in this town. We’ve been running deals for years and nobody has known a thing. Now we’re taking the streets, wearing our cuts. Porter and his family have no choice but to respect territory or else there’ll be a war. And between me and him, it’s personal. He’s going to pay for what he did to you.”
Knox pulled me in for a kiss and I realized it was a goodbye type of kiss.
I was filled with fear and anger.
“Are you leaving?” I asked.
“I have to go do something,” he said.
“I need to go with you,” I said.
“No, you don’t. What you need to do is stay here. And when Porter comes around you need to give me a call.”
I started to shake my head. Things were really going to be like that so soon? I wanted to slap Knox. But how could I? He hadn’t lied to me. He hadn’t hurt me. This was his life. It was the life of an outlaw. To come and go as he needed. It was like before when I’d sit in my room and stared into Knox’s window, waiting for him to come back.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m going to fix it all.”
“I know,” I said. “I believe you. I just hate this. All of this.”
“So do I. After my old man was sent to prison, the entire club changed. My uncle gave everyone a chance to hand in their cuts and move on. The club took a big hit. I kept it together and had to get approval from Uncle Jakey for everything I did. No more of that shit. If you want to know where I’m going… I’m going to prison.”
I gasped. “What?”
He started to laugh. “I’m going to talk to my old man.”
“Asshole,” I said. My heart was pounding.
“See? That’s how much you love me.”
“Like you need more proof,” I said.
He slipped his arms around me and pulled me close for a hug. When I shut my eyes and smelled his leather cut, I was taken back years. To a time when I never knew when we’d have our last hug. The same feeling went through me then.
I then looked at the leather cut, trying hard to appreciate what it meant to him and to the town and to all of his boys. They grew up on the street, survived, and always stuck together.
Knox took my face into both of his big hands and he kissed me. It was a really good kiss. It turned me on again, no surprise there.
When he stepped back, he grabbed my hand again. We went at arm’s length and then he let me go.
“I’ll be in touch, darlin’,” he said. “I promise.”
He opened the door.
Before he could slip away, I said, “Knox…”
He looked back. “Yeah?”
“I love you. I swear on it. I’ve always loved you.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re my darlin’. You’ve always been. I love you.”
He shut the door and was gone.
I felt empty and I felt alone.
Knox was back and I really did believe it was for good. That’s what scared me the most. Because when me and him were together, it wasn’t an explosion of romance. It was wild lust, a deep romance, and hard realities.
Inside my heart… I knew someone was going to end up dead.
What I didn’t expect was that I was going to get pregnant.
chapter eighteen
(knox)
*NOW*
At the garage, I kicked open the door to the chapel and smiled big.
“Amen, motherfuckers,” I said.
It was the same as before. Just a little dusty and in need of a good cleaning.
I walked the length of the table and stood behind the chair where the old man took the helm of the Reaper’s Bastards MC. They called him Hammer because in his earlier days that was his favorite weapon. It actually started out by mistake. He had gotten into a beef with someone at a garage he was working at. My guess was that it stemmed from something between he and my mother were squabbling about.
He wanted in on the MC and they were fucking with him.
Someone said the wrong thing and the old man grabbed a hammer and broke the guy’s jaw. Turned out that guy was a prospect for the MC. The old man got to take his place and when he was sent out to do things, they gave him a hammer. He’d break fingers, kneecaps, jaws, whatever was needed.
When he was patched in, they gave him the name Hammer.
I didn’t sit in the seat the old man took as President of the MC. It wasn’t my place to do so. But I stood there and thought about what he’d do. Putting the cut back on was maybe a slap in the face to him and Uncle Jakey, but what good was the Reap if our cuts weren’t being shown?
Ari and Matteo came into the room next.
“Knox,” Matteo said. “Lawyer called and you’re all set for your meeting.”
“Did you get in touch with Uncle Jakey?” I asked, looking at Ari.
“Left a message. He’s going to be pissed.”
“I know,” I said. “But we can’t hide anymore. We’re members of the fucking Reaper’s Bastards.”
“Amen to that,” Matteo said. “I’m tired of barely getting by with things and feeling dead inside.”
“This puts a lot of eyes and heat back on us,” Ari said.
“Good,” I said. “I have my own shit to settle. Personal shit. I want eyes on me.”
I patted the top of the old man’s chair and then walked toward Matteo and Ari. I hugged them both, our hands smacking each other’s leather cuts, just like we always used to. It should have never stopped happening. The old man going to prison didn’t need to end everything.
I walked to my motorcycle and saw Slam sitting on his motorcycle. He was finishing a smoke and gave me a nod.
“Where are you riding today?” I asked.
“With you, brother,” he said. “We don’t travel alone, right?”
I smiled.
Just like before. Just like always.
A true brotherhood.
I put my fist out and Slam punched.
We hit the road, cruising north through the northern Cali mountains to the prison. Fuck me if the damn place didn’t jut out of the goddamn horizon like something out of a horror movie. I hated the fucking place. I’d been there a handful of times, visiting members of the Reap that had taken a hard fall. We never left our brothers behin
d until they did something treasonous against the MC. A lot of good men were put behind those stone walls and a lot of them took their last breaths there.
That was the thing about prison and jail and all that legal justice bullshit. From the public it was a do the crime, do the time sort of deal. But what if the crime had a better outcome for the town and the people who depended on being safe?
Shit, one of our guys, Maxx, heard his only daughter had been violated by some scum fuck that hung around and dealt drugs outside the one school in town. His old lady had skipped out and was stripping every night to make ends meet. Maxx lost his fucking mind over the ordeal. The PD wasn’t able to tie the scum fuck to anything, including the drugs that had killed a handful of high school kids.
We took a vote on it and it was shot down on how to handle the issue. I remember the old man getting so fucking livid about it.
Maxx didn’t care though. He already made up his mind.
He killed the scum fuck right outside the school and waited for the PD to find him. He declared his version of justice and then got his own when he was sent up north for life. The jury spared him the death penalty but some internal shit between the Reap and another crew got hot on the inside and Maxx was tagged.
So you tell me… who was right and wrong in that situation?
Now, for my old man, the deal was a little different. The club had eyes on us for a long time. It caught up to my old man after a botched gun run. It was an interstate affair and spread on the news like wildfire making it damn near impossible to get away from. The old man was tied into deals, drugs, murder, along with some bogus prostitution stuff. No matter what, he was hit so hard with charges the best the lawyers could do was negotiate a life in prison sentence. He was granted some freedoms on the inside, all of which had to be bought through favors in and out of the MC.
I stopped my motorcycle at the barbed wire capped fence and climbed off. I slipped my fingers around the fence and tugged at it.
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